Long gone are the days of the homologation special, turbo monsters, and a questionable understanding of safety. In its place, we have an era of BOP, parity, and really good racing. However, it’s also led to some very questionable and confusing choices from many manufacturers and governing bodies. And today, I’m going to put together my list of confusing, annoying, and otherwise obtuse marketing choices.

First on the list, I’m going to talk about my favorite thing that will happen in 2024 – GTE is dying. Now don’t get me wrong, GTE has been the home for many bad ass cars over the years, and for that, I’ll forever appreciate it. However, very few things in this world hit a nerve quite like people who should know what they’re talking about and yet they keep calling the GTE’s “GT3”. It’s not a GT3. It’s an order of magnitude more expensive, it’s faster, etcetera.

While that’s something that gets on my nerves, I don’t necessarily blame the people who relentlessly call it that, the blame falls largely on the manufacturers who can’t keep their story straight. The Corvette GTE runs as a GT3 in IMSA and the Ferrari GTE can be made out of a GT3, I suppose I can see how that could lead to confusion. But the worst offender, by far, is Porsche. They call anything and everything a damn GT3. You had the GT3 RSR (which in fairness, was before group GT3), the GT3 cup, and the GT3 line of road cars, and guess what? Not one of them is an actual GT3. In fact, Porsche only produces one GT3 car, and it’s not even simply the 911 GT3, it’s the 911 GT3 R.

Another German brand that has a lot of weirdness going on in their models is Audi. Evidently, they don’t know how to build a GT car that’s not R8 based, and the R8 in it of itself is a Huracan in different clothes. The Audi GT4, GT3, and GT2, are all R8 based (in order of speed it’s: GT4-2-3. Thanks SRO!), and somehow they made them all vastly different from one another. The GT4 is all Audi, the GT3 is for all intents and purposes a Huracan GT3, and the GT2 is based on the R8 Spyder, but that’s a story for a different day.

The last one I have to bring up today is simply a product of circumstance. The Ford GT GTE is being effectively succeeded by the Mustang GT3 in WEC. The GT, an uber exclusive supercar that you had to be invited to buy, is being succeeded by the dime a dozen crowd controller. Absolutely no hate towards Mustangs, but in terms of Ford’s sportscar presence, it’s almost comical watching the flagship fall from an unattainable halo car to a car that I turn around and trip over in any given parking lot. But in the end, I can’t complain too much, it’s always welcome to have another American V8 thundering around the race track (Please no more American V8’s, the Cadillac was cool the first few times but I think it’s caused me hearing loss!)

I could go on for days about the unnecessary confusion of GTD and GT3, but I’ll leave it there. It brings warmth to my heart that the premier class of GT racing will be straight forward, but there’s a long fight ahead to stop the ridiculousness (Looking at you, SRO, with your goofy GT1 class. Let it die.).